


Red Tide Rising

by ruff_ethereal



Series: My Boyfriend's A Copper [3]
Category: Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - 1920s, Blood and Violence, Explicit Language, F/M, Gang Violence, Gun Violence, Illegal Activities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-24
Updated: 2015-03-24
Packaged: 2018-03-19 11:24:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3608331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruff_ethereal/pseuds/ruff_ethereal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some of the servers dropped their menus and trays, replacing them with pistols and shotguns. New cars, unmarked, inconspicuous, and missing license plates rolled up to the curb. Their engines were left running as their occupants stepped out, took cover behind the doors, and rested their guns on the edges. In the nearby canal, boats from the bay were starting to make their way to the restaurant's dock.</p><p>“Penn, you have your piece with you, right?”</p><p>“Never go anywhere with you without it. You?”</p><p>“Why do you think I never let you reach up my left thigh? Is it loaded?”</p><p>“Sorry, no, kinda against gun safety from basic.”</p><p>“Great.”</p><p>“Duck behind the planters, you cover me while I reload?”</p><p>“Sounds like a plan.”</p><p>The bullets started flying as Sashi and Penn dove for cover.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts), [radiowrittenheart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/radiowrittenheart/gifts).



> A red tide is an algae bloom that is poisonous to sea life and coral.

There was nothing quite like your car exploding to cap off a romantic evening.

Penn flinched as a burning wheel bounced past him. He quickly pushed himself off the pavement and rushed over to Sashi. “You okay?” He asked as he carefully placed a hand on her arm.

“I'm fine.” Sashi growled as she rolled over to her back. The scowl on her face grew as she saw the twisted, flaming wreck her car had been reduced too. “Though whoever the fuck did this to me isn't going to be, real soon.”

“Priorities, Sash, priorities...” Penn mumbled as he helped her back up.

Behind them in the restaurant, diners and staff were already screaming and panicking, rushing for the door. The valet that had been driving a car into the parking lot had already screamed out of it. No one else seemed to have been hurt.

Sashi pulled Penn's arm off her waist as soon as she was back on her feet. “Douchesnozzles...” She mumbled under her breath. She swung around to look back at the restaurant, and scowled.

Some of the servers dropped their menus and trays, replacing them with pistols and shotguns. New cars, unmarked, inconspicuous, and missing license plates rolled up to the curb. Their engines were left running as their occupants stepped out, took cover behind the doors, and rested their guns on the edges. In the nearby canal, boats from the bay were starting to make their way to the restaurant's dock.

“Penn, you have your piece with you, right?”

“Never go anywhere with you without it. You?”

“Why do you think I never let you reach up my left thigh? Is it loaded?”

“Sorry, no, kinda against gun safety from basic.”

“Great.”

“Duck behind the planters, you cover me while I reload?”

“Sounds like a plan.”

The bullets started flying as Sashi and Penn dove for cover.

* * *

“Motherfucker!”

The door to the safehouse slammed open. The goons inside raised up their guns, but quickly lowered them as Sashi limped inside, blood pouring from her leg. One of her goons handed her a first aid kit, another pulled up a chair. Another two closed the door and called the doctor.

Sashi tore the kit from their hands and sat on the chair with a dull thump. “Gotta play hero, stay behind, 'My job as a police officer'…” She mumbled angrily as she patched herself up.

One of her goons came up with a glass of milk and a worried frown on their face. “Hit me.” Sashi said as she took the drink.

“It's war on the streets. They're hitting everyone, everywhere, with some serious firepower.”

Sashi's hands tightened on the glass. “How serious?”

“Military grade hardware and explosives, boss.”

“Mother _fucker_ … someone hand me a phone! I need to make some calls, now!”

A goon was standing by with one at the ready. Sashi drained her milk, exchanged it for the phone, and started dialing.

“ _Chief Wiseman's desk, how may I--”_

“Boone, how the fuck did this happen?”

“ _Uh, oh! I'm sorry, who are you? I don't recognize this voice, nope, never heard it in my entire life!”_

“Stop playing around, Boone! What the fuck do I pay you for when some douchesnozzles can go to war on me with Uncle Sam's guns? … Boone? Boone! Boone, you better be on this fucking line! … Motherfucker!”

“Boss, you gotta hear this!” One of the goons sitting by the radio yelled. They turned up the volume.

“… _firefight quickly ended when the suspects used explosives on the police barricade. Officers scrambled for safety and new cover, some even jumping into the bay nearby for refuge. The attempt all proved for naught, however, as the suspects quickly peppered the water with bullets._

“ _The bay turned red as bodies floated up to the surface, a gruesome, brutal version of a similar incident several weeks ago. The police have yet to release a formal statement regarding the names of the injured and dead, as more violent incidents erupted elsewhere in the city.”_

Someone took the phone from Sashi's hands before it could drop from her hands. The doctor came in some time after that.

“Ran out of numb juice.” They said as they opened their bag.

“That's okay,” Sashi said. “I won't need it.”

* * *

Whenever jazz or swing came on, Sashi liked to close her eyes and pretend she was dancing with Penn, instead of laying on a couch in a safehouse, alone, waiting for her leg to heal.

Another phone call came in—Sashi prepared herself for another wave of bad news. Maybe another business had been shut down, another lieutenant had been arrested or killed, or one of their contacts in the legal world had been found out.

It was difficult to feel anything about them; after the Chum Bucket burned down, there were few things that could top it.

To Sashi's surprise, the goon operating the phone didn't yell the news over, they ran over to her with the phone and couldn't hand it to her fast enough. Hesitantly, she answered it. “Hello…?”

“Hey, Sash. _You know, you're an_ astoundingly _difficult woman to find when you don't want to be.”_

Sashi almost dropped the phone. She smiled for the first time in weeks. “Penn! You're okay!”

“ _Well, not_ completely, _but I_ am _still alive, so there's that!”_

“Don't _fuck_ with me like this, Penn, or I swear, I _will_ find some way to reach _through_ this phone and _murder_ you!”

“ _Okay! Okay… I may have taken a couple of bullets in places but I can move. Sorta. You?”_

Sashi sighed in relief. “Shot in the leg, just waiting for it to heal at this point.”

“ _Good to hear. Say, quick question: you still know your parent's address and phone number, right?”_

“… Yes, why do you ask?”

“ _Your parents want to talk with you over dinner. They don't feel its right to break the silence over the phone, and all.”_

“...”

“ _They know. I'm sorry, Sash, but it was that or your parents were going to throw me overboard. I love you, see you at six.”_

“… Love you too, Penn. See you then, copper.”

* * *

By “talk” the Kobayashis meant “yell at their daughter in Japanese the whole night with a few pauses for Sashi to meekly say 'Yes,' 'No,' or 'Less than ten words, also in Japanese.'” They yelled as soon as they opened the front door, they yelled all throughout dinner, they yelled as they cleared the table and washed the dishes.

The walls of the dinghy apartment rattled, the neighbours were ominously quiet, and for the first time in Penn's life, he saw Sashi look truly, honestly afraid of something or someone. There was little he could do but stay by Sashi's side the whole night and hold her hand.

But for Sashi, that was more than enough.

The yelling wound down as tea was served in the living room. The Kobayashis came in together for a tearful group hug, and parting words were said in soothing tones, before Penn and Sashi were summarily evicted from the house with a sack filled with Penn's belongings and freshly made rice cakes between them.

“Sorry your parents kicked you out of your own house, Sash.” Penn said after the door was slammed shut behind them.

Sashi sighed. “It's only temporary, they said. They'll let me back in once I get out of the underground and get a legitimate job.”

Penn smiled at her. “Well, I'm ready to return from the dead whenever you need me too, Sash. These 'Red Tide' guys made a lot of progress, muscling into your territory, but I think we can take it back if we work together, like old times, right, Sash?” He nudged her with his elbow.

Sashi frowned and fell silent.

“Sash?”

“Penn, when do you usually send a telegram to your folks in Australia?”

“I'm overdue by a week. Why do you ask?”

“Because we're getting the hell out of here, copper.”


	2. Chapter 2

They set out at the break of dawn. Even a ruthless criminal organization hell-bent on controlling a city needed to sleep.

Guards stood scattered around the docks, personnel already doing the final preparations on the boat. Sashi and Penn were about to board until the guards reported a raving lunatic at the gates who refused to leave until they could see them.

“Let's just go, Penn; this could be a trap.”

“I don't know, Sashi, I've got a feeling that this might be important.”

“Or, it could just be someone with a gun in their back pocket waiting to shoot us.”

“Hey, you let the worst undercover cop ever inside of your bar, and look where that got you.”

Sashi sighed. “Fine. Bring him in!”

Their visitor was brought in at gunpoint. They thought he was a fat, filthy hobo in ruined, torn clothes, until he opened his mouth and started speaking.

“Sashi! It's me, Boone! Please, you have to let me on this boat with you!”

Sashi snarled. “It's Ms. Kobayashi to you, copper, now get the hell out of here!”

“Come on, Ms. Kobayashi, I'm on my knees begging you!” Boone paused. “Okay, _now_ I'm on my knees, begging you! Please, please, please, I have to get out of this city!” He crawled over to Sashi, whimpering and crying.

“AGH! Get the fuck off my leg before I kick your fucking teeth in!”

“Woah, Sash, calm down.” Penn put a hand on his girlfriend's shoulder, before looking at Boone. “Chief Wiseman, let go of my girlfriend's leg, please.”

Boone did, but stayed on the ground, groveling and weeping quietly. Sashi stepped back as far away as she could without falling into the water.

“Okay, now that we're all civil and level-headed--”

Sashi rolled her eyes.

“Okay, as civil and level-headed as we're going to be right now: Chief Wiseman, why do you need to escape with us?”

“Just call me Boone. I'm not chief anymore. They found out I was helping you guys, it was all over the news. Soon as I drive in to work there was this huge lynch mob waiting for me outside. I ran and hid in the dump for _hours_ before they finally stopped looking for me!”

Sashi wrinkled her nose. “Well, that explains why you smell worse than usual.”

“Were you followed here?”

“Of course not! I crawled through the sewers to get here! Do you realize how hard it is to read those maps down there? It's a good thing this city's sewers are so organized.”

Sashi squeezed her eyes shut. “Oh my god, please stop talking. Penn, let's just ditch this guy and get out of here already.”

Penn frowned and look at her. “Sash, we can't just leave Boone here. Think of all the things he's done for us. We owe him.”

Sashi growled. “Yeah, fat lot of help he's been these past few weeks! Where the hell were the police when my bar was getting burned down, huh?”

“They were already on to me then, Ms. Kobayashi! I couldn't just give the press more evidence to incriminate me!”

“And yet they did, so boohoo, you're a horrible corrupt cop, now get out of my sight before I turn you into chum!”

“Sashi.” Penn walked over and laid his hand on her shoulder.

A tense minute passed in complete silence.

“If we get caught, he was the mastermind all along.” Sashi mumbled.

“Sounds good to me.”

Boone stood up and smiled. “Whatever you say, Ms. Kobayashi, whatever you say.” He started walking towards Sashi.

“If you touch me again, I will snap your goddamn neck.”

Boone stopped dead in his tracks.

“Alright, we've wasted enough time sitting here talking!” Penn said as he came between them. “Let's go board this ship, hide in the chum, and set sail to freedom!” He put a hand to his hip and dramatically pointed his finger at the open sea, before he walked over to the gangplank and bowed. “Ladies first, of course.”

Sashi smiled as she walked past him, Boone murmured “Thank you” over and over again as he frantically boarded the ship, and Penn pulled the gangplank in after him. Sashi's goons were already waiting with cloth masks, knives, three open barrels of chum, and a chair.

“Seeing as climbing inside a barrel of fish guts is a horrible, terrible thing, I'll go first.” Penn said as he climbed onto the chair and started stepping into his barrel. The slop made an uncomfortable wet noise as his shoe pressed down on it. “Okay, this doesn't seem so—“

Most of his leg sank in with a disgusting sucking noise.

“OH GOD IT'S EVEN WORSE THAN I REMEMBER!”

Sashi and Boone cringed as Penn started churning the chum inside, slowly lowering himself deeper and deeper into the slop.

“Where are we going, anyway?” Boone asked.

“Oh, place called Australia!” Penn said as he had worked himself in waist deep, his voice a few tones higher. “Don't worry, my parents have given us an in with the cops there. It's really the criminals that you have to worry about, though.”

Penn kept on sinking himself in, and whined pathetically as the chum finally came up to his neck. He smiled at Sashi from behind the cloth mask on his face. “Love ya, Sash! See you again when we're out in open sea!”

Sashi cringed and forced herself to smile. “I love you too, Penn.”


End file.
